ROBERTO

Roberto was raised in..well..a shithole.

The neighborhood he was in was very poor, crime was rampant, among many other problems. His parents had a horrible relationship, but refused to divorce, mainly for financial reasons as the two together could barely afford their tiny apartment as is, even with both of them working long hours. Their problems often being redirected toward him if he happened to be too close to the 'splash zone'. His dad was more physical with his abuse, and often degrading, while his Mother was more psychological and usually would get completely wasted and walk into Roberto's room just to scream about his father to him.

Because of the home situation, Roberto would usually escape by visiting the library, which had some of the few working computers and internet connections in the whole town. While they'd often get stolen, the library was determined to make sure internet was available to the neighborhood. He would often go straight to the library after school and stay away from home for days, postponing the consequences of when he'd have to eventually go home.

Around 15 he started smoking pot, and after his 16th birthday, someone at school who held a grudge for Roberto having embarassed them after they attempted to push him around, starting spreading rumors about his sexuality. Around the school he didn't care, he never spoke to anyone anyway, and it hardly made a difference in how much he was picked on. But at some point the rumors reached his parents ears, and his home life continued to get even worse, his theoretical 'homosexuality' being the last straw. After a year of dealing with the carnage from his parents unleashed by an unknowing and ignorant peer, Roberto could no longer take it and ran away from home.

Roberto lived homeless for awhile, scavenging for change, exchanging anything he could find for more money, and often befriending anyone who would let him stay over at their place for a few days. He made some friends during this time, but never any close or true ones. He'd tried getting jobs before, but without a high school degree and his clearly dirty appearance, it was very hard to get hired, and when he was, he would often be fired quickly for his anger problems or showing up late. Eventually after he turned 20, he was given a tip from one of his 'friends' about a place that would hire practically anybody, and against his better judgement he decided to try his luck there. He was hired of course, and brought onto one of the large spaceships owned by the company. His job was explained to him, very straightforwardly, that he was to be researching and taking care of abnormal, anomalous, or straight up dangerous creatures and objects. While unhappy with the result of this job, Roberto still fit in quickly. It was impossible to be late when the alarms made sure no one could oversleep, and no one with any real power over him cared about his anger problems. He did his job well, and was surprisingly obedient, mainly because it wasn't like he could do anything else, leaving the ship wasn't an option.

With his high performance and obedience, Roberto was promoted to the ship captain after only 2 years there. Granted, the former captain had died in an awful accident, which certainly sped up the process. Roberto was a strict team captain, but he knew how to avoid accidents, and surely enough the rate of accidents on the ship went down overtime as he led the team. Most on the ship respected his authority and ability to keep things in line, but few liked him as a person, he was still as angry and reserved as always, and very few were spared of his rude remarks. Despite his outward demeanor, he didn't take any pleasure from seeing his coworkers struggling or unhappy, and would often take over tasks for the more 'anomalously' unpleasant jobs, under the act of claiming that people weren't doing it correctly and that he'd "do it himself if they couldnt get it right". Some recognize what he's really doing, others can't see past the facade and view it as another reason to dislike him. The most prime example being a braclet similar to the yin symbol. As compared to it's yang necklace counterpart, which was also stored on the ship, the yin bracelet had mostly negative effects. It would drain positive emotion from most who interacted with it for an extended time, and when the bracelet had to be cleaned regularly, this often left people in terrible moods, some very depressed or bitter for days if they had to work with it multiple times in a row. Because of all the complaints, Roberto chose to simply take up the cleaning job himself, suffering similar consequences which didn't help his attitude, but no one else had to feel drained by it anymore.

About a year after his promotion, more members were brought to the team, Winter being among them. At first Roberto and Winter didn't entirely get along, Roberto mostly being frustrated at Winter's lack of seemingly any useful skills, so he sent her to do the easiest or simply repetitive tasks. He also allowed her use of the yang necklace, which made some of the harder tasks easier for her to do, just as long as she told him whenever she used it, since the two pieces of jewelery were dangerous to have out of their cases at the same time.

Eventually after a year since Winter joined, the former employee who worked the greenhouse had died. With the greenhouse being their main source of food, and seemingly no one else who knew how to handle the plants on board, the crew started becoming worried. Winter told Roberto that she knew how to farm, and while he was frustrated that she'd never brought this up beforehand, he swapped her job from the TV channel to working the greenhouse, but still gave her other odd jobs occassionally. 2 years later, Winter told Roberto ahead of time that she would using the necklace at a certain time tomorrow, which he agreed to. The next day however, Roberto had expected her to still contact him before doing it, when she never did, combined with Roberto being exhausted that day, he took out the yin bracelet without thinking and almost immediately the two pieces of jewelrey gravitated toward the other and once fused, released a dragon that wreaked havoc on the ship.

The ship's systems were breaking now, and thanks to the quick wit of another employee, the ship was steered toward a planet in an attempt to land and it seemed like they would succeed, but it backfired as the ship began to crash instead. Winter and Roberto woke up hours later, Roberto hardly injured beyond some heavy bruising, Winter had it worse with a dislocated arm and several large cuts, luckily none anywhere vital. Roberto had gone looking for survivors, and found Winter first, helping her up as they both continued to search. They found one other person, the ship's nurse, but he was very injured. The two helped him outside and he tried to advise them how to help, and sent Roberto to find a medical kit if possible while he popped Winter's arm back into place. With his guidance Winter and Roberto were able to keep him alive for 2 weeks, but he eventually succumbed to an infection that simply kept getting worse no matter what.

Being the only 2 left after the crash, Winter and Roberto were left to figure out how to survive, something that their fallen coworker knew how to do far better than they did. The two were worried that they would not last much longer, while Roberto was convinced they were going to die, Winter kept hope that they could at least find a way to survive, but luck was on their side, and after 2 months of being stranded, another ship landed on the planet. While Roberto was suspicious, Winter ran right over as the strangers came out of the ship; A human girl, two cats, one black and one pink, and a tall black jackal with antlers. She begged that they rescue them and at first the Jackal was insisting 'no', scaring Winter so bad that she just kept begging. Eventually the black cat gave the others an angry look and insisted that they at least brought them back to civilization, and the other human agreed and insisted as well, and so Winter and Roberto were saved, and the others introduced themselves as Mary, Puss in Boots, Hale-Bopp, and "Mitternacht Freischütze". By the time they reached civilization again though, Mary and Puss had gotten attached to Winter's company, and Winter insisted that Roberto stay too, despite him still being very suspicious of the group, Winter liked them, and he stuck around to watch over her.